


Nine Kinds of Silence

by suburbanmotel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Boys Kissing, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Derek Hale is Bad at Feelings, Growing Old Together, Hand Jobs, Idiots in Love, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Use Your Words, Words are hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26656666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suburbanmotel/pseuds/suburbanmotel
Summary: //This was how it usually went — Stiles talking, Derek not talking.Derek was used to it, the endless spill of words pooling between them, filling the cracks and chasms of silence. He told everyone it drove him crazy, but that was mostly a lie. If you asked him on a good day, he might even say he liked it. It was the quiet that unnerved him, the gaping Stiles’ shaped holes of space where the words were supposed to go, that he didn’t know how to handle.//
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 60
Kudos: 307





	Nine Kinds of Silence

//

Not speaking and speaking are both  
human ways of being in the world,  
and there are kinds and grades of each.  
_~ Paul Goodman, Nine Kinds of Silence_

//

_there is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy_

—listen.

Stiles was talking. This was nothing new. Stiles talked a lot, more than anyone else Derek had ever known. More than Laura, or Cora even. More than Scott and that was saying something. He talked when he was happy and when he was sad, or anxious or excited or stressed. Especially when he was stressed. He was stressed and he was talking so fast Derek could literally not understand every third word or so tumbling out of his mouth.

So Derek did what he usually did in these instances: He kind of tuned him out. He went on autopilot, hands on the steering wheel, foot on the gas, the brake, the gas. He got the general gist of what Stiles was saying but he wasn’t fully engaged. And he wasn’t responding because, really, there wasn’t a point when there was barely a gap long enough in the word stream for him to reply. This was how it usually went — Stiles talking, Derek not talking. Stiles talking, Derek pretending to listen.

But then it was suddenly, jarringly quiet. Startled, Derek looked over to the passenger seat. Stiles was watching him, mouth slightly open, expression expectant.

“What?” Derek said, defensive.

“What do you think?”

“About what?”

“About what I’ve been saying? What I’ve been talking about for the last, oh, eight minutes?”

Derek swallowed. Autopilot. Brake, gas, steering. He hadn’t been listening. Not really. He’d heard the words, the steady, hypnotic flow, the almost comforting heavy weight of the one-sided conversation. He knew, objectively, that Stiles had been talking about the trolls, about plans of action, about the inherent stupidity of wolves. It had all washed over him like so much warm water.

“Uh,” Derek said. Stiles leaned forward a bit, waiting.

Derek opened his mouth and shut it again.

“Jesus Christ,” Stiles muttered. “Just forget it. I don’t know why I bother. You guys can get ripped to shreds for all I care.” He closed his mouth, held it so tight Derek could see the muscle twitch in his jaw. Derek almost told him to keep talking, to try again, that Derek would pay attention this time, but he knew that jaw clench, that muscle twitch. 

When Stiles stopped talking, it got very quiet, and Stiles had stopped talking, so Derek kept driving.

//

While the quiet anger of the car unnerved him, the quiet stillness of Stiles’ bedroom soothed him. Dark and enclosed, shadows long and familiar crawling up the walls, across the floor. Derek knew this room and these walls and this floor, knew which board creaked loud enough under his foot to wake Stiles up from a sound sleep. Sometimes Derek stepped there, purposely, just because. Sometimes he avoided it. Like tonight.

This wasn’t the first time he’d done this. Or the fourth. Or the 10th. He’d lost count over the years how many times he’d slipped along the shadowed exterior of the Stilinski house, sometimes an hour or two after he’d dropped Stiles off, or watched him pull into the driveway and step too abruptly on Roscoe’s brakes, stomp up the walk too loud, slam the front door too hard. Derek was used to watching and used to waiting. Sometimes he just wanted to make sure Stiles made it inside all right. Other times he waited until the light in Stiles’ bedroom finally turned off, 2, 3, 4am. Like tonight.

It was quiet in Stiles’ room which was why Derek liked it there. Also, Stiles was there, which was another reason why Derek liked it. Two reasons, he told himself as his crept and climbed and slid inside. It was quiet and it had Stiles. And Stiles wasn’t talking for a change because he was sleeping. And it wasn’t his usual uneasy restless sleep. Tonight it was deep and heavy and solid. It was almost tangible, Stiles’ sleep, settling over Derek’s shoulders, holding him in place.

Derek sat in the darkness, a foot away from a sleeping, silent Stiles and watched and listened. He saw Stiles’ chest rise and fall. He heard the steady, comforting whisper of Stiles’ breaths in and out, pause, in and out. He could hear the heavy, solid beat of Stiles’ heart buried deep beneath his delicate layers of skin and bone. His heart, carved out in its neat little pocket in Stiles’ chest. And if he listened very _very_ hard, he could hear Stiles’ blood as it rushed through his veins, down his legs and arms, to his fingers and back up to his heart.

He looked around Stiles’ bedroom, eyes skipping along books, laptop, piles of clothes, lacrosse equipment. It looked the same as always, messy and cluttered and unorganized, at least to the untrained eye. It smelled the same as always, sweaty and pensive and frantic and oversexed. When his gaze fell on the bed again, Stiles was awake. His eyes were open, dark and gleaming in the dim light. He was still, one arm bent under his head, the other loose at his side. The sheet was pulled up to his chest. He was wearing a T-shirt, and, hidden beneath the sheet, sleep pants, Derek was sure. Stiles never slept naked, not even just in his underwear, not even shirtless. Derek wondered why. Then he wondered why he was wondering. They stared at one another. Stiles was never this still and never this quiet and Derek, for all he hated noise and pointless, frantic activity, was a bit unnerved. He could feel Stiles’ eyes on him, heavy, considering. Wary. No, not wary. Curious. Stiles was never wary of Derek, he realized with a jolt of surprise. He was never scared, never unnerved, even when Derek was raging, wolfed out. Even when he was _creeping around his room_ in the dead of night.

“Hey,” Derek said now because Stiles wasn’t saying a word. Derek waited. Stiles watched. Derek clutched his fingers together in his lap. Quiet Stiles _unnerved_ him. “I just uh. I felt uh. Kind of. Uh.”

Stiles kept watching. It was so quiet in the room. An owl call outside, long and low and lonely.

“I felt bad about earlier, about not listening to you. I mean I was listening, kind of, but sometimes it’s uh.” Derek took a breath. “It’s a lot of words. All at once.”

Stiles tilted his head a bit, eyes dark, mouth soft. Derek had kissed that mouth, once, months ago now. Christmas. Late at night, a chase, a near miss, heartbeats loud and skittering around their chests. He wondered if Stiles remembered. He looked at that mouth now, the shape, the dip, the curve. Stiles smiled, one corner of that mouth going up. He scooted back in the bed, lifted the covers and nodded, invited him without a word, and Derek let out a long breath and kicked off his shoes and accepted.

//

_the sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face_

Months ago Stiles had been home for Christmas. Freshman year of college. He’d been away since September, had been home now for exactly two days, and there was snow, and there was blood. It wasn’t _his_ blood, thank god. Not yet. Scott’s, maybe, but Stiles wasn’t sure because Scott was half wolfed out and snarling and thrashing. Isaac had someone — or something — pinned to the forest floor and Stiles didn’t want to interrupt. Boyd and Erica were tag teaming the decimation of something he couldn’t make out, and Derek. Well Derek was wrestling with his third creature of the night. He was looking pretty exhausted, but when he turned and saw Stiles standing there, unsure, unarmed, his eyes narrowed and he snarled.

“Run,” he yelled. “Now.”

Derek liked to give orders a lot, usually in short, terse sentences and Stiles usually ignored them, but there was an urgency this time, a demand he couldn’t completely overlook. He nodded and then hesitated — for what he wasn’t sure — and when Derek opened his mouth to yell again, Stiles ran.

He ran until he couldn’t catch his breath then fell when his legs gave out. He went down hard, barely getting his hands out to break his fall and then he got a mouthful of dirt and dirty snow and skinned palms and a heartbeat so loud in his ears it actually hurt.

He was pretty sure he was safe there, for now. Derek had told him to run and for once he’d listened because even he wasn’t stupid enough to think he could help against a battalion of witches. He’d managed to take one and a half of them out before he’d been hexed, leaving him bruised and confused and dazed, and not just because just before _that_ , Derek had kissed him.

Stiles thought of it now, as he lay sprawled in the middle of the woods, dark and still and quiet. There was a moon, half a moon, giving enough light for him to see tangled roots and long dead leaves, outlines of shapes he couldn’t identify but didn’t frighten him.

Derek had kissed him against the trunk of a tree. He’d pushed up against Stiles under the cover of the dark, so close Stiles had felt the thick thud of his heart against his own chest, through layers of clothing.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Derek had said into Stiles’ ear, as witches screamed around them. Stiles didn’t speak. He knew he shouldn’t be here. He should have stayed at school, where it was safe. They had keg parties there and girls liked him. _Boys_ liked him. He should have stayed far away from Beacon Hills and Derek Hale and yet. And yet. Derek had growled in frustration and angled his face a little to the left, lips brushing over Stiles’ flushed cheek and landing on his mouth, hard and soft at once. Stiles wondered if it was a mistake, an accident in the heat of the moment, but when Derek didn’t immediately pull back in disgust, Stiles knew. They stood there for the space of three full heartbeats, Derek’s lips just resting on his, before the witch appeared and Derek moved away.

Now Stiles shifted on the hard-packed ground, cold, riddled with roots and rocks. He should move, he knew. He should get up and find his way back to the others. It wasn’t safe for him out here. It wasn’t safe for him anywhere, but the middle of the preserve at midnight was just stupid and foolish. Dangerous, Derek would say, his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. 

You know better, Stiles.

Lately Stiles didn’t think he knew much about anything, really, so he lay there quiet and still until the wolf showed up. Huge and black and familiar and knowing, sniffing at his hands and neck, pushing at the side of Stiles’ face with a wet, black nose, aggressive, impatient. Stiles sighed and struggled to his feet. It was cold and he was bone-tired but he wasn’t alone. The wolf walked beside him all the way home.

//

There was a wolf in the house. In Stiles’ bedroom, to be precise. Stiles was freezing. He was shivering in his bed when Derek slid into his room after making sure he made it through the front door and locked it behind him. Human Derek stood and looked at poor, pathetic cold Stiles and quickly shifted into wolf Derek and came to stand beside Stiles’ bed.

Stiles let one hand fall into the wolf’s dark, dark fur, rough and thick, impossibly warm. Are you even real, Stiles wanted to ask. He wondered if he was hallucinating.

The wolf — Derek — sat and watched, silent, still, as Stiles huddled under his blankets, back against the wall, chin tipped down, eyes closed tight, fingers knuckle-white on the edge of the blankets. The room was dark and so quiet with only the sound of Stiles’ quick breathing to fill it. Wolf Derek put his paws on the edge of the bed and jumped up, quick and nimble, and lay down next to Stiles, fur and nose and paws and tail. Stiles wrapped his arms around the wolf and breathed into his fur.

Then he started rambling, quietly, almost under his breath.

Stiles talked about school and classes and friends and missing his dad and missing Beacon Hills when he was away. He talked about his fear of flunking out, of not being smart enough, or good enough. As the shivering stopped and he grew more tired, he talked about a boy, a boy he liked. He didn’t know if the boy liked him back, but he hoped he did. He whispered these thoughts into the dark, into the dark fur of the wolf, who lay very still, eyes open, watching him.

This was how it usually went. Stiles talking, Derek not talking.

“I don’t even know if you can understand me, dude,” Stiles said at last, his mouth, soft and sweet, right next Derek’s ear.

The wolf twitched.

“I shouldn’t have come back,” he whispered into thick, black fur. “Are you glad I came back? I don’t know. I can never tell.”

He fell asleep with his hand twisted into the wolf’s fur. The wolf — Derek — stayed awake long after, watching Stiles, listening to the quiet of Stiles not talking.

Eventually the wolf exhaled long and hot on Stiles’ cheek and pushed its warm wet nose into the space below Stiles’ ear. It was quiet, just the two of them, and it was good, because the room was safe and they both were safe in it.

//

For days after that, Derek continued to watch him, remembering what Stiles said when it was dark and he wasn’t sure if Derek understood him. Stiles watched him back, usually out of the corner of his eye, curious, but not wary.

He didn’t ask about the kiss against the tree and Derek didn’t bring it up.

At the end of the week, when Stiles was due to drive back to school, he sat in the idling Jeep in his driveway, tapping fingers and jiggling knees and scouring the radio for a decent song. His dad had left for work and Stiles had said his goodbyes to everyone the night before. Except Derek, who was now standing outside the driver window, hands in his pockets, waiting. Stiles rolled it down. It was cold. It smelled like snow. Derek fixed Stiles with a steely, steady gaze.

“What, dude?” Stiles said, bracing himself for recriminations, warnings, flat-out threats.

“I’m glad you came back,” Derek said, quietly, deliberately. “I’m always glad when you come back.”

Then he turned away and was gone.

//

_the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts_

Stiles got hurt a lot in high school. Between lacrosse and pack fights and the general clumsiness of a human person, he managed to end up with more injuries than anyone, even with constant surveillance. Derek didn’t know when he started noticing, or when he started caring, or when each bruise and scratch and slight limp made him wince in empathy.

It was all very annoying.

On a Wednesday Stiles showed up to pack meeting with an ugly scratch under his left eye and Derek kept staring at it until Erica nudged him hard in the ribs.

On the following Friday he engaged in a troll battle while holding his right arm tight to his chest, and if Derek stuck close to him the entire night despite odd looks from everyone, it was nobody’s business but his own.

When Stiles bounded into Derek’s house after school one day sporting a spectacular shiner, Derek leapt from his chair so fast it tipped over behind him, hitting the floor with a solid thud. Then he was holding Stiles’ face in his hands, tipping it this way and that for a closer look. Then he noticed everyone was looking at him, not at Stiles, because not only was he _cradling_ , he was _growling_.

“You…ok, there dude?” Stiles said, eye wide, the one that wasn’t nearly swollen shut and purple.

No. He wasn’t ok. He wasn’t ok when Stiles got hurt or when Stiles got too close to him and he wasn’t ok with how Stiles smelled — like candy and sex — and he wasn’t ok with the fact that he got hard late at night thinking about Stiles.

He just generally wasn’t ok with anything lately.

Derek remembered these incidents out of nowhere on a bright cool day in October at Scott and Allison’s wedding. The leaves were changing. The air smelled like wood smoke and early morning frost that never fully lifted. High school and unexplained injuries were five years behind them. The stolen kiss in the woods and the soft slide into Stiles’ bed two years ago. The last time he’d laid hands on Stiles, however, was not two years ago, and it wasn’t a brief kiss and it wasn’t a quiet sleepover, but Derek couldn’t think about that now, not here. 

Scott and Allison were finally getting married and Stiles was home from grad school because he was best man. Of course he was. Derek hadn’t spoken to him or seen him in months now. Months and months. Maybe half a year and suddenly there he was, standing at the front of the small church, tall and lean in black, hair a bit longer but styled nicely. His hands were clasped in front of him. There was a scratch on his right hand, long and shallow. Derek could see it from where he sat, third row, friend of the groom, sandwiched between Boyd and Isaac. Scott had wanted to include the whole pack, he swore this, drunkenly, but they’d ended up keeping it small, with Stiles and Lydia, who now beamed at one another from across the pulpit. Derek thought how attractive the two of them were, as a pair. As a _couple_. He had no idea if they were dating. He supposed they could be. They’d have attractive children, he thought, then stopped himself from thinking about anything that involved Stiles’ genitalia. He focused instead on that scratch as the minister droned on. He stared at the back of Stiles’ hand, the pale smooth skin and the long scratch, pale red, just newly starting to heal. How had he done it? Could be anything. Derek wouldn’t know. Derek didn’t know anything about Stiles, these days.

After the vows the wedding party glided back down the aisle, past the congregation. At the last moment Stiles and Derek locked eyes. Stiles nodded and looked away, fast.

Derek drank at the reception, much more than he usually allowed himself to. Scott had supplied werewolf affecting alcohol and Derek dove right in because there was no way he was going to make it through the night sober. Erica dragged him on the dance floor and he moved with an abandon he associated with shifting and running. It was as close to naked he ever got with other people these days. Stiles danced too, of course. He’d always danced, and he’d always moved with a freedom that Derek had envied and admired from a distance. Derek danced with Scott and Allison and Boyd and Isaac and Stiles slow danced with Lydia and when she looked up at him and smiled and he smiled back, Derek swallowed and looked away and took another drink.

They had kissed, he and Stiles, a long time ago now. And they had fucked, not so long ago, but long enough that Stiles could have moved on so easily, to someone easier, someone more acceptable. Lydia wasn’t easier, but she was definitely more acceptable.

Later, much later, the pack ran. Werewolf tradition. They ran to the top of the highest hill on the edge of the town and turned their faces up to the sky. They howled, Scott first, then one after another, joyous, celebratory. Derek went last. His howl was long and low and mournful. He howled for chances missed and love lost. He howled because he’d waited too long and now it was too late.

They staggered back to Derek’s house, where Stiles and Lydia and Allison waited, sitting around the kitchen table drinking mugs of tea. Stiles was watching Derek closely as he gulped down three glasses of cold water in quick succession, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Derek could feel eyes on him, but he didn’t say a word. He hadn’t spoken to Derek at all, not once, all day.

He was suddenly incredibly, unbearably tired. He wanted everyone out of his house. He wanted his bed. He wanted to be alone. He wanted quiet. Allison and Scott would leave in the morning for a trip to Canada. Boyd and Erica and Isaac had disappeared to their own rooms. Lydia and Stiles were. Well. They were sitting and talking quietly and Derek was done.

“Well, I’m tired, and it’s late, so do you two need a room here? Or do you have a hotel booked?” His voice was sharper than he intended but he was so tired and his head hurt. “I’m sure you can both squeeze into the double upstairs. Lydia’s pretty small and Stiles doesn’t take up much room, being a little spoon.” He paused. “At least that’s what I remember.”

“Wow,” said Stiles. His face had gone red. Lydia pursed her lips and arched a brow.

“We’re both going home, actually,” she said. “To our own homes.” She paused. “Separately.”

“But thanks for the offer,” Stiles added.

Derek knew he sounded jealous but he wasn’t jealous because there was nothing to be jealous of. He was protective of everyone in the pack, whether he’d slept with them or not. Stiles was pack. And he’d also slept with him. So it was a bit more complicated.

“Do you need rides?” Derek asked lamely. Lydia smiled, so sweetly.

“Allison and Scott are dropping me off on their way,” she said. “Stiles you’re welcome to catch a lift.”

“I think I’m going to hang here for a minute,” Stiles said, looking not at Derek. “Derek and I haven’t had a chance to catch up yet. Properly.”

“Uh huh,” Lydia said.

When it was finally quiet again Stiles crossed his arms and tilted his head.

“Well,” he said. “When you decide to finally talk you really go for it.”

Derek shrugged, helpless to disagree. This was all so stupid, standing here in the too bright kitchen with the boy — man — he missed like a severed limb sitting right there not giving a shit.

“How are you?” Derek said. He knew it was the polite thing to say, he did have some manners, and Stiles had said he wanted to catch up after all.

“Oh my god,” Stiles said, throwing his arms in the air. “Seriously?”

Derek frowned. “Yes. Seriously. I don’t know. How are you? Are you…ok?”

“Am I…ok,” Stiles repeated, slowly.

Derek moved then, before Stiles could say another word. He took Stiles hand, cupped it in his, turned it over, palm up, then back over. He studied the cut there, the one he’d been obsessing over. Derek traced it with one finger. Stiles held his breath. Derek could feel him trembling.

“What happened here?” Derek said.

“My roommate has a cat,” Stiles said. “We don’t get along.”

“Oh,” Derek said. He had a roommate. And there was a cat. Derek knew neither of these things. He wanted to cry.

They sat there, practically holding hands in Derek’s kitchen and Derek had absolutely no idea what else to say.

“Was that you?” Stiles said at last. His fingers tightened in Derek’s grip. “The sad one. I was listening for them all. They were all happy. Except for one. The last one. That one was you, wasn’t it.”

Derek nodded because he was too worn out to come up with an excuse.

Stiles sighed. “I should—”

“I’ll drive you home,” Derek said suddenly. “Do you. If you.”

Stiles lifted one eyebrow.

“Want,” Derek said.

Stiles wanted.

//

_the alive silence of alert perception, ready to say, “This… this…”_

This Derek was the same but different, Stiles thought as they drove through the dead of night along the familiar streets between their houses. This Derek was even quieter, but not solemn. Settled. Resigned? No not exactly. This Derek was _waiting._

So Stiles did what he did best: he started talking. Babbling, really. School and Scott and marriage and dating and families and the TV shows he was watching the TV shows he was hating and why he’d let his hair grow and how annoying it was to take care of and the list of tattoos he wanted even though he was too chickenshit to get them and his newly discovered love for chocolate covered cherry frozen yogurt and—

This was how it usually went. Stiles talking, Derek not talking.

This was nervous talk for Stiles. Filling the space. He was familiar with this kind of talking and he was still doing it expertly when Derek cut the engine in the Stilinski driveway and followed Stiles up the path through the front door. To his credit, Stiles didn’t even bat an eye to have his one-time sworn enemy and several-times former lover standing in his childhood home at 4 in the morning after his best friends’ wedding.

He flicked on the overhead light and turned to find Derek watching him. Stiles broke off his monologue about his ongoing and fruitless efforts to seduce the roommate’s cat and laughed.

“Yeah yeah, I get it, I talk too much,” Stiles said, resigned. “Been hearing it all my life.” He paused. “Heard it enough from _you_.”

They were alone in the house, Stiles realized as he kicked off his shoes, tossed his coat on the chair. He missed. The Sheriff had gone to work after the ceremony and it was just him and Derek and hours stretching out in front of them.

“You don’t,” Derek said.

Stiles startled and looked back. Derek was still standing by the closed front door, leaning against it, hands shoved in his pockets.

“I don’t what?”

“Talk too much.”

Stiles laughed again, short and sharp. “Ok,” he said, dragging it out. “Lydia says that, too. I think it’s just to make me feel better, though.”

Derek went still at that. “You and Lydia—” he said and stopped. “You two— ”

Stiles shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No. Not like that.”

Stiles wasn’t sure why Derek drove him home and came inside and why he was standing there, unmoving, at the front door. The quiet of the house settled around them. It was usually too much for Stiles, being alone, completely alone there. It made him twitchy, the quiet. He’d turn on the TV before he went upstairs, loud, so he could hear its faint voices when he was in his room. He’d put a movie on his laptop in the background while he tried to work, or crank music in his earbuds. Tapping, twitching, singing, mumbling. Anything to drown out the horrible white silence.

But now Derek was looking at him and he wasn’t speaking and the house was quiet but it was almost ok. He swore he could hear the hum of the lamp in the corner, the persistent drip of the kitchen faucet, the familiar creaks and groans of wood and plaster as it sank down for its own sleep.

“Anyway,” Stiles said when Derek didn’t comment. “I do. Talk too much. It’s ok. I know I do. It’s just me. Or the ADHD. Or both. Kind of a bad combination.”

Derek shook his head.

“Did you, uh, want to actually move away from the door and come sit down? Do you want something to drink? Or eat? You’re probably tired from the big run and sad howl session. Or are you tired? I’m not sure when my dad gets off, but you’re welcome to sleep on the couch, or—”

He wasn’t sure how he planned to finish that sentence. Had he been going to offer Derek his bed? He might have. Later, when he had more time to think, he thought he actually might have been heading in that direction. But for now the entire thought process was cut short when Derek did move away from the door, came toward him, leaned down and kissed him, softly, on the mouth.

It had been many months since anyone had kissed Stiles and meant it. Derek meant it. Stiles remembered these kinds of kisses — it was the only way Derek worked. Months and months now since they’d kissed, or touched, or fucked, and ended it when yet another arguments or misunderstanding in inability to community stopped everything in its tracks. Stiles tried to remember why they weren’t doing this _all the time_ but gave up when Derek wrapped his arms around him, fingers digging into his back, pulling him close and kissing him harder.

Stiles gasped into Derek’s mouth when Derek touched his neck, the edges of his collarbone, then down over the top of his shirt to his nipples. They’d always been sensitive, and Derek remembered, Stiles couldn’t believe he remembered. He touched them again, and again, making Stiles writhe against him, breath hot and heavy over his cheek.

“This,” Stiles said, running a hand over Derek’s dick, long and hard under Stiles’ fingers. “This, _this_ —”

They stood there, kissing and touching, mouths wet and thighs trembling, pushed close enough together that buttons and zippers were hurting, pulses thrumming in necks and wrists until there was a car in the drive and a door slamming and heavy footsteps on the walk. Because it was dawn and the Sheriff was home and Stiles was about to come in his pants like a horny teenager. His face was red. Derek’s eyes were red. They were leaning heavily against each other and the wall. Just before the door opened, Derek spoke against the side of Stiles’ face.

“Don’t do that again,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Leave me.”

//

_the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos._

Listen to this part:

There was a different kind of quiet in the later days, not because there was less to say, but because it became more difficult to say it. And maybe they didn’t have to speak because they already understood: the nod, the tilt of the head, the slant of a brow. Silent communication that said more than any complicated, messy words ever could. They learned to do it over years and landscapes, giving and taking and giving back.

“Maybe it’s fate,” Stiles said a lot.

“What is?”

“This, us, everything.” His hand made a sweeping gesture, taking in everything around them, above them. Their house, their yard, the trees, the things that made them happy.

“I don’t know if I believe in fate.”

“Just happy accidents?”

Derek shrugged. “Just us. That’s all. I’m here and you’re here and we’re together and that’s all I think about.”

Listen. There were all kinds of silence.

There was the silence of a peaceful summer afternoon lying together in the sun-bleached grass behind the house, hand in hand, curled finger to palm—

There was the silence of an argument that flared fast and then faded away because there was no more time to fix it and it didn’t even matter, did it? What were they fighting about again?—

There was the silence of end days, a new quiet between people who had spoken and shared almost everything they could all their lives—

This was how it had always gone — Stiles talking, Derek not talking, but there was a shift lately, something Derek couldn’t quite put his finger on.

It was quiet in the car. Derek liked to take Stiles on drives late at night when he could. He could do that because he was aging slower than Stiles. They knew that would happen. It was expected. Derek had explained to him years and years ago the life cycle of the wolf, how he could likely live to 125, maybe longer if he took care of himself, if he wasn’t taken out by hunters or any number of other predators first. Stiles made sure he didn’t get taken out by hunters. Stiles made sure Derek took care of himself. Stiles took care of Derek until he was too old to take care of anyone anymore.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, though, Stiles silent, Derek hunting for words to say. It was the quiet that unnerved him, the gaping Stiles’ shaped holes of space where the words were supposed to go, that he didn’t know how to handle.

Derek talked now, talked until his voice went rough with use, spilling out years and years of memories and arguments and loving and friends and family, some still here and some gone, and the two of them, always. He talked until he was raw and ragged and Stiles heard every word.

There was the silence after Stiles had fallen asleep and Derek lay awake in the dark, alone but not alone, counting breaths, hand on Stiles’ too thin chest, ridges of ribs, as it rose and fell, rose, fell. Rose—

Finally, there was the silence that came between rattling, bone-dry breaths.

One two three—

Short, and then longer.

four five six seven—

Longer still.

Eight nine—

And then still.

Listen.

_Listen._

//

Later he would go outside, alone. He would up at the moon, full now, heavy and yellow, the pull and throb of it deep in Derek’s bones. He wouldn’t speak at all then because all the words were gone, left in the room at the bottom of the stairs at the back of the house. The best room. The one with the big window that looked out onto the garden and the woods. Every word he could think of was in there. And he would howl.

//

_the noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination,/loud and subvocal speech but sullen to say it_

“What are you two fighting about now?” was a common refrain heard from Scott, from Isaac, from Lydia, from Erica. Sometimes it was gentle, sometimes furious, sometimes sarcastic, usually exhausted.

In all honestly, Derek rarely knew what exactly they were fighting about. He just knew the anger. And the frustration. The inability to fully explain himself. And Stiles’ endless flow of words.

Instead of trying to compete, Derek would just stare when he had no idea what to say. He hoped it was a menacing stare, something to stop Stiles mid-sentence, because anything Derek had to say right now would be wrong. The wrong words would come crashing out of his mouth, tumble to the floor at Stiles’ feet and cut like glass. He would sound angry, because he was, but mostly he was angry at himself, for his complete inability to put anything useful into words.

When they fought it was quiet but there was a hum between them, static, electric. Derek could hear it buzzing in his ears. How could Stiles not hear it? The bitter snap of everything that was wrong, everything unspoken between them?

I’m trying, Derek wanted to say every time. I’m so fucking in love with you and I don’t know how to tell you without actually telling you and I can’t tell you because I don’t know how, he wanted to say.

They would stare at one another, Derek pleading, silently, with his eyes for Stiles to speak, to fill the growing gap, to fix this.

“Nothing?” Stiles said and Derek had rarely seen him this angry. “So that’s it. You’re just going to spend the next week _sulking_ —”

Derek opened his mouth to argue, then realized it was true, of course. Of course he’d sulk, he’d lick his wounds. Well, he’d take off for the woods for a few days and catch some rabbits is what he’d do.

“Hey, guys,” Scott said, hands up, peace peace.

“Maybe—” Allison began, voice high and tremulous.

Derek closed his mouth, clenched his fists, bit back hard against growing incisors.

“Words, Derek,” Stiles said, slapping a hand down on the table between them. “It’s how we separate ourselves from the animals.”

And oh, that one hurt. Derek flinched just as Stiles realized what he’d said. Derek saw it in his face. Regret, bathed in a bit of shame. Derek was familiar with those emotions and he saw them at war on Stiles’ flushed, beautiful face. 

Words, Derek thought as he ran. Millions of combinations of words in the English language and I can’t manage to string any of them together without fucking it all up.

//

_the musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity;_

Before the wedding, before Stiles returned to school for his second year, he found Derek alone behind his house. Derek was turning the garden over, giving old vegetables and rotting vines back to the earth, getting ready for winter.

Stiles watched him, vibrating with things unsaid.

“What do you want, Stiles,” Derek said at last, leaning on the spade, tired and sweaty. It had been a long summer of glances and longing and things unspoken and Derek was weary. Winter was coming and he wanted to hibernate until spring. In the spring Stiles would come back and they could try again.

“You know you can ask for things,” Stiles said, voice low. “You can do that. If there are things you actually want, that is.”

Things he actually wanted. Derek _wanted_ to laugh. He _wanted_ to punch something. He _wanted_ Stiles.

“Do you even know what you want?” Stiles said, coming closer.

 _Yes_. Derek shook his head.

“Do you want me to leave?”

 _No_. Derek stared at him.

Stiles held out a hand, bare and white. Derek took it.

Derek’s bedroom had been off limits for years. Stiles closed the door behind them, pulled off his shirt and kicked off his jeans while Derek stood and watched, mind empty. He let Stiles undress him, too, quick, efficient. Stiles lay him down on his own bed and straddled him, the warm skin of their thighs rubbing together. There was no sound outside this room. There was no world outside this room. There was just Derek and Stiles, their skin, their hands, their fingers.

Derek wondered if some spell had been cast around them, silencing the outside world. He couldn’t hear a thing except for Stiles’ breaths, heavy and harsh, whistling under Derek’s mouth as he pressed his lips to Stiles’ throat and chest. Then there was a groan and rumble and he realized it was coming from him.

Derek had never had a Stiles this quiet. He didn’t know what to expect of this Stiles, naked and warm and writhing and utterly silent. He bit his lips and the insides of his cheeks, head thrown back and eyes shut tight. Derek could hear the sounds in his chest, low and pained. There was air whistling out between his teeth as Derek kissed his way down Stiles’ chest, licking one nipple and then the other. Stiles gasped and writhed and bucked so Derek did it again, and again. And once more.

 _Do you like this?_ Derek thought as he stroked Stiles’ cock, thick and silky and unbearably hot. _Tell me. Tell me what you like and I’ll do it. Anything._

“What do you want, Derek,” Stiles hissed, arching up under Derek’s hands as they stroked Stiles, worked him outside and inside, the hardness and the softness, the bones of his hips and the backs of his knees.

It was the only time he spoke. He watched Derek with those bright bright eyes, mouth open and wet.

“I want you to make noise,” Derek said in a rush. “You’re.” He licked at the softest place under Stiles’ chin, the lobe of his ear, the wet corner of his eye. “You’re too quiet.”

Stiles laughed, short and sharp and surprised. “Ok,” he gasped as Derek swallowed him right down again, the tip of his cock at the back of Derek’s throat. “Ok ok ok ok ok—"

And when Derek slid into him he said Derek’s name, and he came Derek could feel it humming through his veins, like a cry that echoed right down to his bones.

//

_baffled silence_

He knew Derek was stubborn. And pigheaded. And brave. And insecure. And even when surrounded by pack, horribly lonely.

After the wedding and before the babies — there were eventually three babies, for anyone interested — Stiles and Derek spent a lot of his time with Scott and Allison. They went to movies and they played board games. They went _bowling_. They sat on Scott and Allison’s back deck and drank, late into the night. Then Derek and Stiles would walk home together.

Some nights they talked, or Stiles did, and some nights they just walked under the moon and the stars, the only sounds the scuff of their shoes on the road and the distant cars and the crickets.

“They’re so good together, don’t you think?” Stiles said absently.

Derek cocked his head.

“Scott and Allison. They’re like.” Stiles waved his hands. “Made for each other. I can’t imagine them being with anyone else.” He slapped his hands together, loud in the quiet. “They just fit. I mean they fight, sure, but not like—”

Stiles stopped and exhaled. Oh god.

“Not like us.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

Derek didn’t say anything.

“I _didn’t._

“We fight a lot, though,” Derek said.

“Well, duh.”

They kept walking.

“You should be.” Derek said and stopped.

“What? I should be what?"

“Do you ever think you should be with someone else,” Derek said, like it physically hurt him to say so. “Someone not me.”

“Someone not you,” Stiles repeated. He did that a lot. Repeated the dumb things Derek did when he couldn’t quite wrap his head around the dumbness. He shook his head and glanced at Derek then looked away and shook his head again.

Derek shrugged. They kept walking. Stiles didn’t say anything else, which was never a good sign. Derek was frowning and sullen, which was not unusual but so heavy it was palpable.

When they reached the edge of the preserve Stiles pushed Derek up against a tree and crowded right up to him, chest to chest. He grabbed Derek’s wrists for good measure and pinned them above Derek’s head. Derek let him. Up this close, Stiles smelled like beer and whiskey, his breath hot on Derek’s cheeks.

“What are you doing?” Derek said.

“Try and break free,” Stiles said. “I dare you.”

Derek sighed. “You’re being really immature right now,” he said with a straight face. Stiles looked at him.

“ _I’m_ being immature,” Stiles said.

Derek nodded.

“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not right now.”

Derek’s face didn’t move.

“Oh my god you’re being serious right now.” Stiles started laughing. He bent right over with the force of it.

“If you don’t stop that you’re going to throw up,” Derek said, also with a straight face.

“I am _not_ —” Stiles said and then gagged a bit and took a few deep steadying breaths. When he stood back up straight he got right back in Derek’s space, pushing up close, eyes heavy but serious. Stiles ran a finger, slightly sticky, slightly sweet, down the side of Derek’s face, hooked it under his chin and pulled him close.

“Listen,” he whispered against Derek’s mouth, breath sticky and sweet fanning against Derek’s lips. Derek looked down and up and down again. “Are you listening?” Stiles said. He didn’t sound drunk anymore, or not _as_ drunk. He was staring at Derek with an intensity usually reserved for death match fights in the preserve or a new sex position in bed.

“There’s only one person for me. You. You’re it. Like, sorry pal, but you’re stuck with me. Like. Forever.”

Derek nodded like he was resigned and didn't say anything else and turned his head away but Stiles swore he could see him smiling.

//

_the silence of listening to another speak, catching/the drift and helping him be clear_

Before they finally Got It Together and Figured It Out, there was this one time. Stiles thought about it for years and years after, whenever he was angry at Derek before or during or after a fight. He thought about it during angry words and angry silences, times when he wondered what the fuck they were doing, trying to make this work. He wondered how differently it could have all gone, if he hadn’t sucked up his pride and shut up his mouth, how life would have ended up for both of them. Sometimes, when it was quiet, but a good kind of quiet, he would look over at Derek and feel such a surge of panic in the not knowing that Derek would look up and catch his eye and Stiles would smile and nod and Derek would sigh and settled again.

This one time Derek took off and Stiles followed him because he was just about done with all of it. He’d just fucked Stiles within an inch of his life on the aging, sagging couch in the Stilinski living room, 11pm, last year of grad school, John out with his bowling league — Bowling! That was a new one for Stiles — March rain rattling the windows. The corner lamp was on. Yellow light spilled across Stiles’ bare legs, Derek’s bare back, sweat-slick under Stiles’ curled fingers. Curled so hard they cramped, hurt for hours after, reminding Stiles every time he flexed.

Stiles bit his lip so hard he tasted copper when he came, knees up and pressed hard into Derek’s sides, head banging the arm of the couch. When Derek came he stuttered, hips bucking, teeth on Stiles neck sharp but not enough to draw blood. They lay there, drawing breath, rain trying to get in.

Stiles couldn’t speak. Literally couldn’t form words that made sense. Derek lifted his head at last, hair damp and tangled and stared down at Stiles, eyes unreadable.

“I love you,” Stiles said. It wasn’t an accident and he meant it but he hadn’t meant to say it, not out loud. It was so cliché to say that right after sex, but he couldn’t help it. His mouth always had a mind of its own and these words had been sitting heavy in his chest for months and months, years probably, and he had to say them now.

Derek pulled back and pulled out. He fumbled into his clothes, arms tangling in the sleeves of his shirt, almost tripping on the legs of his pants.

“Uh,” Stiles said, struggling to sit up. Later, he would remember blinking in the heavy yellow light and how the rain was suddenly very loud. How Derek’s hands fumbled on his buttons and how he jammed his feet into his shoes and pulled on his jacket, then stood there at the front door, back to Stiles.

“Uh,” Stiles said again.

He would also remember how the silence covered everything when Derek closed the door behind him.

//

Derek’s house was dark except for one light on the main floor. Stiles let himself in the front door. He wasn’t trying to be quiet. He was making an entrance and fuck anyone who got in his way. He was _done_ with this bullshit. It was quiet everywhere so he stopped stomping because it was too much, even for him. He found what he was looking for in the living room, and he stood at the doorway, in the shadows, listening.

Derek was curled up in Erica’s lap on the couch. His head was down, face covered with his hands. He was soaking wet. Erica was patting his wet hair, his shoulders, his back. They were murmuring so quietly Stiles could barely hear them. Stiles paused, still. Watching, listening. Erica looked up and saw him, smiled a bit sadly.

“I don’t want to mess it up,” Derek mumbled.

“Why would you do that?”

Derek laughed. Stiles knew that laugh.

“Because that’s what I _do_ ,” he said. “It’s what I just did.”

“How did you do that?” Erica said. She was talking to Derek but looking right at Stiles, half hidden in the shadows of the room. Stiles held his breath and waited. There was talking, he thought. There were words. And then there was all this silence between them.

“He told me he loved me and I just. I said nothing. I just left.”

“ _Do_ you love him?” Erica said. She was smiling that smile, the one she used when she already knew the answer to a question.

Derek groaned and gripped his face harder. Stiles moved closer, moved into the light of the room. A floorboard creaked. Derek jerked up, eyes wide. How he had not heard and smelled Stiles up until now.

“How long have you been standing there?” Derek asked. He was trying to sound angry, affronted, but he looked small and scared.

“I’m going to let you boys talk,” Erica said, kissing the top of Derek’s wet head and slipping from the room.

“Are you?” Stiles said.

“Am I what?” Derek said.

“Going to _talk_ ,” Stiles said.

Derek swallowed and straightened, squaring his shoulders.

“I love you,” he said. “You know that, right?” He paused. “I mean, you must know that.”

Stiles stared at him.

“Right?” Derek sounded panicked. “I know I don’t say it a lot, or ever, but.”

He groaned again and stood up and stumbled towards Stiles, hands out.

“What do you want, Derek?” Stiles said when Derek stopped just short of touching him. Stiles sniffled. He swiped at his wet nose with the back of his hand. He said it quickly, wanting an answer and not wanting one, too.

“I want,” Derek said, slow and clear. He paused. His mouth was full of words. He chewed and licked at them, felt their hard edges and soft vowels against the insides of his cheeks, biting at his tongue. Be careful. Choose wisely. “I’m saying.”

How it usually went, for years and years, was Stiles talking and Derek not talking. Stiles filling the gaping spaces between them with an endless stream of words and usually Derek liked it because it meant he could just sit back and be silent.

“Listen,” said Derek. He touched Stiles' cheek, his bottom lip, his jaw.

Stiles opened his mouth, then shut it. He nodded. Ok, ok.

Derek took a deep breath and got all his words ready.

"Ok," he said.

_listen—_

//


End file.
